Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

“ But while the Algonquins have made no other use of it, but to trace consanguinity, or at least, remote affinities of families, and while they have also separated into wild independencies and tribes, who have assumed new tribal names, and wandered and crossed each other’s track and boundaries in a thousand ways, the Iroquois have turned it to account by assuming it as the very basis of their political and tribal bond. ”

“ Such were the aboriginal people who occupied western New-York, and their memory will forever live in the significant names which they have bestowed upon Niagara and Ontario, and a thousand lesser waters, which beautify and adorn the land. Viewed as one of the Indo-American stocks, they possessed some very striking traits.
Few barbarous nations have ever existed on the globe, who have shown more native energy, and distinctiveness of character. Still fewer who have evinced so firm a devotion to the spirit of independence. ”

“ Some are interpreters, some teachers of schools, and others engaged in transacting the business of the nation.
You can, sir, best judge of the influence of the gospel in promoting worldly prosperity, when you have fully completed the census which is now being taken. When you count up the framed houses and barns, the horses, cattle, sheep and hogs, the acres of improved land, with the wagons, buggies and sleighs, clocks and watches, and the various productions of agriculture, you can easily conceive the difference between the present, and thirty years ago. ”

“ To answer this question, and to shew how the aristocratic and democratic principles were made to harmonize, in the Iroquois government, it will be necessary to go back, and examine the law of descent among the tribes, together with the curious and intricate principles of the Totemic Bond.
Nothing is more fully under the cognizance of observers of the manners and customs of this people, than the fact of the entire mass of a canton or tribe’s being separated into distinct clans, each of which is distinguished by the name and device of some quadruped, bird, or other object in the animal kingdom. ”

“ Philologists listen to their speech and admit that in one tribe or another they possess all the powers of articulate utterance known to that race. We know by this kind of evidence, physical and moral, that they are a branch of the original Adamic stock, without reference to the pages of revelation, where we learn the same truth, and are told in so many words, that “God out of one flesh, formed all men.” And we must perforce infer, that the Indian race is of foreign origin, and must have crossed an ocean to reach the continent. ”

“ Unfortunately for the conversion and civilization of the Indians, they had not a fixed population—they drew their supplies mainly from the chase, gave up a large portion of their time and means to war, and besides moving periodically, at least twice a year, from or to their hunting and planting grounds, they were in a general progress of recession before a civilized population. They shrank before the determined spirit of progress of civilized arts and industry, which elicited resources where the Indian had seen none, and made an industrious use of every acre of tillable ground. ”

“ Their notions of a Deity, founded, apparently, upon some dreamy tradition of original truth, are so subtile and divisible, and establish so heterogenous a connection, between spirit and matter, of all imaginable forms, that popular belief seems to have wholly confounded the possible with the impossible, the natural with the supernatural. Action, so far as respects cause and effect, takes the widest and wildest range, through the agency of good or evil influences, which are put in motion alike for noble or ignoble ends—alike by men, beasts, devils or gods. ”

“ It does not appear, from any thing history or tradition tells us, or from any monumental remains in the valley or its immediate vicinity, that it had before been occupied by other nations. They do not speak of having driven out or conquered any other tribe. There are no old forts or earthen walls, or other traces of military or defensive occupancy, of which we have heard. Their ramparts were rather their own brawny arms, stout bodies and brave hearts. From the earliest notices of them, they were renowned for wielding the war club and arrow with great dexterity. ”

“ The men, or a number of them, usually begin the dance alone; and the women, or each of them, selecting the one with whom she would like to dance, presents herself at his side as he approaches, and is immediately received into the circle. Consequently, the young Indian beau knows nothing of the tact required to handsomely invite and gallantly lead a lady to the dance; and the young Indian maiden, unannoyed by obnoxious offers, at her own convenience, gracefully presents her personage to the one she designs to favor, and thus quietly engages herself in the dance. ”

“ A tropical climate, ample means of subsistence, and their consequence, a concentrated and fixed population, raised the ancient inhabitants of Mexico, and some other leading nations on the continent, 4 to a state of ease and semi-civilization, which have commanded the surprise and admiration of historians. But it may be said, in truth, that, in their fine physical type, and in their energy of character, and love of independence, no people, among the aboriginal race, have ever exceeded, if any has ever equalled, the Iroquois. ”

“ Seeing some things mysterious and wonderful, he believes all things mysterious and wonderful; and he is afloat, without shore or compass, on the wildest sea of superstition and necromancy. He sees a god in every phenomenon and fears a sorcerer in every enemy. Life, under such a system of polytheism and wild belief, is a constant scene of fears and alarms. Fear is the predominating passion, and he is ready, wherever he goes, to sacrifice at any altar, be the supposed deity ever so grotesque. When such a man comes to narrate events, he stops at nothing, be it ever so gross or puerile. ”

“ I have been equally careful to ascertain the number of families who cultivated no lands, and insert them in the tables. The division of real property among this people appears to fall under the ordinary rules of acquisition in other societies. But it is not to be inferred in all cases, that the individual returned as without land has absolutely no right to any, or having this right, has either forfeited or alienated it, although the laws of the tribes respecting property, permit one Iroquois to convey his property in fee to another. ”

“ But while the theory of the Iroquois government thus distributed its powers between two classes of chiefs, one of which ruled in the council, and the other in the field, there was a third power of controlling influence in both, which respected, it is true, this ancient theory, but which annulled, confirmed, originated, or set aside all other power. I allude to the popular will as exercised by the warriors. Whatever was proposed had to come under the voice of the armed men, who had the free right, at all times, to assemble in council, and put their approval or veto on every measure. ”

“ If this mode of multiplication be compared to the lower orders of creation, it had some striking analogies with it. Like the bear and the hawk, the moment the young member was ready to quit the parent lair or nest, it had not only to forage for subsistence, but to defend itself against other bears and hawks, and all other claimants to the food of the forest. To make war is, in fact, the first and the last act of sovereignty of the pettiest of all our aboriginal tribes. 50 War is with them the road, and the only road to fame, and the readiest way to secure a supply of spontaneous food. ”

“ Three hundred and fifty-three years only has America been known to Europe, and yet should we strike our history out of existence, what should we know of the leading facts of the discovery and the discoverer from Indian tradition? ”

“ All the republic is concerned in the antiquarian knowledge and true etymology and history of an ancient race, to whom tradition attaches valor and power, and who have consecrated their name in American geography upon the most important range of mountains between the valley of the Mississippi, and the Atlantic. But the inquiry comes home to us with a local and redoubled interest, from the fact, that they occupied a large portion of the western area of the State, comprising the valley of the Alleghany river to its utmost source, and extending eastwardly an undefined distance. ”

“ A beast or a bird, or a man, or a god, or a devil, a stone, a serpent, or a wizzard, a wind or a sound, or a ray of light—these are so many causes of action, which the meanest and lowest of the series, may put in motion, but which shall, in his theology and philosophy, vibrate along the mysterious chain through the uppermost skies; and life or death may, at any moment, be the reward or the penalty. If there be truth, mingled in the man’s narrations, as there sometimes is, it must be judged of by the lights of reason, common sense, science, sound philosophy and religion. ”

“ It cannot be said that the Iroquois cantons of New-York have as yet, any productive commerce, arts and manufactures. They are, to some extent, producers; furnish a few mechanics, and give employment to, and own a few lumber mills; but it is believed, while some of the bands, and at least one of the entire cantons, namely, the Tuscaroras, raise more grain and stock, than is sufficient for their own full subsistence, the average of the agricultural products of the whole people is not more, at the most favorable view, than is necessary for their annual subsistence. ”

“ In truth, of all subjects upon which these people have been called on to think and act, during our proximity to them of two or three centuries, that of political economy is decidedly the most foreign and least known to them, or appreciated by them, and the census movement was, consequently, the theme of no small number of suspicions and cavils and objections. ”

“ Nothing is more distinct or better settled in the existing traditions of the Iroquois, than their wars with the Cherokees. I found this alluded to at Oneida, Onondaga, &c., in the course of their traditions, but have not been able to trace a cause for the war. They seemed to have been deeply and mutually exasperated by perfidy and horrid treachery in the course of these wars, such as the breaking of a peace pledge, and murder of deputies, &c. Their great object was, as soon as young men grew up, to go war against the Cherokees. ”

“ Intemperance is one of the greatest and most destructive evils, and many more begin to be intemperate, especially among the young men. Among the females of the Tuscarora nation there is more virtue and sobriety and good morals than among the males. I hope the white citizens will try to assist them and promote the melioration of the Indian condition in order to qualify him for life and lead him to appreciate its true end, and to encourage intermarriages in their future generations and to advance in civilization, Christianity, and industry. ”

“ The word Honwe, as will appear by the vocabulary hereto appended, means man. By the prefixed term Ongwe, it is qualified according to various interpretations, to mean real, as contradistinguished from sham men, or cowards; it may also mean strong, wise, or expert men, and, by ellipsis, men excelling others in manliness. But it was in no other sense distinctive of them. It was the common term for the red race of this continent, which they would appear, by the phrase, to acknowledge as a unity, and is, the word as I found it, used at this day, as the equivalent for our term “Indian.” ”

“ This era is not less strongly marked by the stone hatchets, pestles, fleshing instruments, arrow-heads and javelins of chert and hornstone; amulets of stone, bone and sea-shells, wrought and unwrought; needles of bone, coarse pottery, pipes, and various other evidences of antique Indian art. The practice of interring their favorite utensils, ornaments and amulets with the dead, renders their ancient grave-yards, barrows and mounds the principal repositories of these arts. ”